We should pay attention to Elian’s mother’s statements. Yes, his mother said the following, loud and clear:
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Eilan’s place is not with his father
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It is better to drown in the sea than to live in Cuba
BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS --> This Elian shit is the most pathetic, annoying, piece of crap, waste of journalism skills Silo has ever seen!
Two wrongs do not make a right…but three lefts do.
Please. I have looked at that photo several times, and the man is NOT pointing the gun at Elian! He’s holding it pointed away from both of them.
The courts ruled the child should be with his father. The relatives were asked, then ordered, to hand him over. They were given numerous opportunities to settle this short of force. They chose to be defiant. They exploited this child for their own political ends. Give it up.
I just saw some pictures of Elian with his dad. He looks fine.
My guess is that the boy will remember most of this. Six years old is old enough to have a pretty good memory of traumatic events. But I also think that if he’s given the appropriate love & support, he won’t suffer too much.
As for the use of force to get to the boy, well, the picture says something else. It’s obvious that the Elian & the man holding him were hiding in the closet. Those people had no intention of giving the boy over peaceably. They brought the gun-toting INS guys on themselves. They made themselves look like tortured martyrs, when in fact they are not. They are people who were holding a child hostage, and doing it publicly. They had hundreds of opportunities to reunite the boy with his father. It was something that, IMHO, didn’t need to be negotiated at all, let alone negotiated by the UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, fer cryin’ out loud.
The Miami relatives brought this on themselves. They were asked to give Elian back to his father. They didn’t. They were told to give Elian back. They didn’t. They were warned that if they didn’t give him back, he would be taken whether they liked it or not. They still didn’t. They flipped the law the bird, and the law reached out & snapped that finger off.
I’m glad he’s back with his father. But I don’t think that there will be any collective sighs of relief until they get back to Cuba.
Cristi, Slayer of Peeps
I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.
(title & sig courtesy of UncleBeer and WallyM7!)
KARLGAUSS says:
Why should we pay attention to this? She’s dead. Okay, that sounded pretty callous, but tell me this: Who is she to decide that Elian’s place is not with his father? His father had as much right to parent his son as Elizabet did. Are you aware that Elian’s father, not his mother, had primary custody of Elian? When Elizabet took Elian and left the country, she kidnapped him, plain and simple. Are you aware that Elizabet never even met any of the Gonzales relatives now purporting to act in Elian’s best interests? There is no evidence whatsoever that she wanted her son to go to those people, and, of course, no evidence that she would have set out from Cuba in the first place if she’d known she would perish at sea.
I don’t think it’s a true statement, but since you said it, I’ll take it as true: If Elizabet believed that it was better for her six year old son to drown in the ocean than be raised in Cuba, she didn’t deserve him at all.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
[quote}
Not following “orders” from Washington is a bad thing? What kind of scary fascist country do you think this is?[/quote]
Apparently the kind that these people desperately wanted this kid to live in. Funny, huh? If they love this country so much, maybe they should follow its laws.
Oh, he wasn’t pointing it him, and his finger wasn’t even on the trigger. Sheesh.
jodih? Maybe a small whooosh?
Tom~
Did I get wooshed, Tom? God knows it wouldn’t be the first time, but I looked again and I don’t see it . . . but then I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
One interesting note: Take another look at the AP photo. Look at the doorway where the agent has burst in. Then, notice the closet where Elian and his ‘protector’ have emerged.
Then think about this: there is an AP photographer inside the room, with his/her camera poised for the moment.
Guess someone knew this was gonna happen, and chose to let it happen. Now look at the boy’s face. Someone let that boy feel such fear. That says something about Elian’s Miami relatives.
Looks to me as though neither side — the U.S. government or the Miami relatives – has put the boy’s welfare first.
Whooshed or not (and I didn’t see it either, Jodi), right on.
And milroyj, buddy, see my response to a similar post of yours here.
You know, sometimes it takes people carrying weapons to enforce the law. Sorry that looks ugly to you, but I doubt that a bunch of special agents waving petunias, rather than guns, could have successfully rescued the kidnapped boy.
Homepage: www.galacticgovernment.gov
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Location: Trantor
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I just saw pictures of Elian with his dad and with his sister on tv. I may be looking at this through rose colored glasses, but he looked relieved. And happier than he’s looked in any other photos I’ve seen.
Peace,
mangeorge
It’s still there. I just looked.
Sig Alert!
I saw photos of the kid and dad on the CBUT.
That was one happy looking kid.
Enough said, he is now who he belongs with.
lindsay
No need, he was freed this morning !
Gee, my sig takes on new meaning.
“If it’s free, it’s for me !”
My understanding is that travel restrictions to Cuba have been relaxed. I recall a number of news stories this past Christmas showing planeloads of people flying back and forth between Cuba and the US bearing armloads of presents. The Elianistas would, I’m sure, be as free as anyone else to travel to Cuba to see him.
Of course, if the US would stop allowing itself to be held hostage to the political whims of a handful of anti-Castro fanatics, then Elian’s mother probably wouldn’t have had to leave Cuba with him on an inner tube in the first place. Now I am no fan of Castro, but it seems at the very least hypocritical that a nation which holds as self-evident the right of the people to remove a government they find intolerable to be trying to crush a revolutionary government.